


Anger and Acceptance

by tryslora



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Banshees, Community: fullmoon_ficlet, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-Episode: s03e24 The Divine Move, Talking To Dead People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 00:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1530845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac goes to see Meredith, because he knows she can hear things he can’t, and speak to people he can no longer reach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anger and Acceptance

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for Prompt #63 - "in like a lion, out like a lamb" at fullmoon_ficlet. I woke up that morning with an unexpected train of thought that went from “we need fics about Meredith” to “grief would fit this prompt” and then came up with this. It’s not the same as a storm, not exactly, and yet it seemed to fit. As always, I do not own the world or characters of Teen Wolf, but I like to write about them.

Meredith doesn’t seem at all surprised to see him when she greets Isaac as he enters Eichen House. “She told me you were coming,” she says quietly, and Isaac nods.

“Don’t mind her; she hears voices no one else does,” the orderly tells him with a gentle smile. Isaac is glad it’s not one of the crazy orderlies who were at the school; this woman seems nice and friendly, even if she obviously doesn’t understand a thing about Meredith. “Who are you here to see?”

“Her, actually.” Isaac stands with his thumbs hooked in his pockets, his scarf looped warm and comforting around his throat. “Can we go somewhere to talk?” He addresses Meredith rather than the orderly, because she’s a _person_ not a _thing_ , even though it’s the orderly who has to give them permission.

The orderly directs them to a receiving room, the space cold and grey and clinical. There are two chairs: old things made of cold, molded plastic. Isaac refuses to sit, instead wandering around the room while the orderly recites a list of important directions that Isaac ignores, waiting for her to leave them alone, the door slightly open after she’s gone.

The first thing she said was not to give Meredith anything, so of course Isaac digs into his messenger bag and pulls out a cardboard box that has elastic bands of varying thicknesses wrapped around it. He hands it to Meredith, and she takes it gently, cradling it like a treasure. “It’s perfect,” she whispers.

“I paid attention,” Isaac says with a small shrug, as if it’s nothing. But it’s not nothing. It’s like maybe handing Meredith a telephone to the afterlife, and he almost can’t breathe with the hope that she’ll be able to somehow strum Allison into being.

Meredith sinks onto one plastic chair, cradling the box near her chin. She gently plucks one elastic, the sound twanging loudly to Isaac’s ears. He can’t hear what she can, but he can see that she _does_ hear something, her lips moving soundlessly before she plucks the elastic again. “She says, _don’t be angry_.”

Isaac takes a step back, a flush rising under his skin. “I didn’t mean to break her mirror.”

Meredith looks up and blinks. “That’s seven years bad luck.”

“Is that you saying it, or her?” He cocks his head, curious.

“Me.” She plucks the elastic again, listening intently. “She says it’s okay, she understands. The mirror. And the pillow you shredded. And the way you yelled at her dad.” Three more twangs of the elastic as she falls silent, nodding along with the sound. “She says he needs you.”

Isaac crosses his arms, looks at the wall. “He’s compartmentalizing. It lets him be unemotional.”

“She says he needs you,” Meredith repeats, voice stronger. “ _He needs you_.”

Isaac swallows, trying to push back the tears that are rising. “He doesn’t,” he mutters. “He doesn’t. No one does.” Not Chris Argent, not Lydia, not Scott, not Stiles, not Derek, not _anyone_. They have all disappeared into their grief and not one of them has anything left for Isaac.

He understands. He understands better than any of them what it feels like to have someone you love ripped away and know that you will never— _never_ —see them alive again. That the last thing you said to them is the last thing from you that they take to their grave and beyond. His fingers twitch, claws coming out as he presses them against his palms, anchoring himself in the pain.

“You need him,” Meredith whispers. “She says that’s okay, to need someone. That he needs someone too. He needs a son, not to replace her, but to train. It will help him stay on track.”

Isaac flinches then, remembering the Chinese ring daggers that he wrapped carefully and stuck in the bottom of his bag, needing that small anchor to Allison still in his life. 

Meredith smiles. “He’ll teach you how to use the knives.”

It’s real, then. Meredith _hears_ her. There is no way she could know that, no way she could know any of this unless Allison whispered in the vibrations that Meredith hears around them. His breath shudders in his chest, and he nods once, quickly.

“Tell her that I love her.”

“Tell her yourself,” Meredith retorts. “She can hear you.” Her expression gentles, head tilting toward the box as she plucks an elastic one last time. As the sound fades, Meredith looks back to Isaac. “And she knows.”

His heart eases, because that’s what he needed most, to know that she had heard the words that he couldn’t manage to say in the car. To know that he had _said_ them aloud, to her and for her. “Thank you.”

He nods at the box that Meredith still holds cradled close. “Can you hide that?”

She grins then, and he wonders if she might be something of a fox herself. “I can. Thank you.”

Isaac leaves with a lighter heart than he came with. The anger isn’t gone, but it has dissipated, and he feels almost as if he has some vague control over his future again.

He imagines that Allison walks beside him as he goes back to Argent’s place. He imagines that he feels her touch, that he hears her, and it comforts him. “I’m going to learn to use the knives,” he says to the wind, and swears he feels it brush him gently as it whispers back, _and you’ll be great at it_.


End file.
